Sex Magick 2: Men Conjuring Erotic Fantasy, edited by Cecilia Tan

Companion to the original Sex Magick, these are erotic fantasies of the most powerful kind, stories in which the power of sexual love transforms and renews. Bringing rain to a parched earth, healing an injured soul, birthing a new sun for a dying planet, driving out evil spirits–in the erotic visions of these talented authors, all these things are possible and much more.

The sun is hot and bright above the dry grass and sea of tents. I feel parched and worn, bleached by the harsh, dry light of this unseasonable warm spring day. I am standing on a small ridge, overlooking the flat bottom of a narrow valley, with green, tree-drenched slopes rising to either side. Every square foot of hard, flat ground has been claimed by merchants, performers, priestesses, priests, or the members of the wandering tribes that have gathered here for their annual rites, welcoming the return of Spring.

I have felt different this year: alone and separate from family and clan. It hasn’t felt like this since my first gathering, and I feel a numb sense of loss. I go through the motions. I share the cup in circle. I dance the fire. I take my turn at the drums. But my heart is not here. Neither is it anywhere.

Five years ago, I had shared these things with Amira. Together we danced the flames of the bonfire, lifted the cup to the powers of Earth and Sky, and spilled ourselves into the loving embrace of Goddess and God. She was my equal in every way, calling the best from me at every turn, lioness to my lion. And she is with me no more.

I have never been good at letting go of anything I wanted to keep, and so it was when Amira left. I held on to her in my heart. At first I joined the dance with other women, used their love to wash away the first pain, to quiet to heat of my loss. But no one else could call up my passion as she had, and so I withdrew, until now, as I say, I merely go through the motions.

I have become an outsider. How can I do my work as Priest, when I no longer feel the God within me? When I no longer sense the caress of the Goddess in every embrace? I have no answers.
After a last long look at the milling faces of my chosen family and our extended tribe, I turn from the festival site and walk up the slope and into the trees. I take nothing with me.

I know that there is nothing but wilderness for many days on foot in the direction I have chosen, and after the first few hours I lose myself in a trance of walking. The forest surrounds me, touches me gently with sound. I know that it wants to heal me, but I cannot feel it in my heart. I walk on, beyond time, beyond memory, into a twilight beyond any state of consciousness I have yet encountered… and still I walk on.

Slowly I become aware that I am being drawn forward. As I surrender to the summons, all fatigue falls away from my muscles, and fire begins to rise through my bones. I am trotting now. My body dances like rising in the night. My mouth stretches into a wide grin. A wild ecstasy flows through my veins, ignites my soul, and raises me out of myself. I leap forward! The drums rise about me, calling to the deepest part of me by name! “Pan!” they cry, “Come to us!”

The voices reach me now, twining with the drums in their now-irresistible evocation of my presence. Old memories arise; images from before mankind flash before me. I am the Old One, the goat-footed God of the primordial forest. I romp through the darkness, still far beyond the circle of light cast by the fires of that woodland temple, where even now I know the Priestesses summon me. Dancing here in the dark, I listen to them sing to me, call to me, and to my power. I remember this song. I remember the dance. The men ride their sacred drums at the edge of the circle The voices of the drums sing a deep primal rhythm that rises in me as an overpowering lust. The curving horns above my brow glisten with a velvety sheen of sweat, and my musk excites even the stones beneath my hooves.

This lust transforms me. I feel the call writhing within me, from the depths of my body, hardening and drawing me here, into the light before the Temple of great ancient trees. I pause, finally resisting the pull of her voice, that mysteriously familiar voice that calls to me above all the others. I watch as lightly clad priestesses fling themselves around the wheel of the year in their dance of desire. I can feel the lust they raise within themselves. It mounts, and draws me out, draws me to them.

It is Walpurgisnacht, the night for dancing widdershins about the foundations of the world. These dancing pagans have called me up to their fire, to their song, and they do not know what they have called. Only she knows, the High Priestess, swaying before the altar, piled high with grapes and pinecones, with a full cup of new wine. She remembers the old song that calls me forth, that summons my own peculiar madness.

It is an old song, sung in different words, in diverse tongues, yet ever the same and thrilling call. I am just outside the light, and I feel the call so strongly now, so deep within me. I feel it in a place that has never been silent of desire, but ever wanting, ever thirsting after life, and more.

In a final rush I leap the fires and land snarling in the midst of the circle. For a moment the shock of my appearance breaks the spell, and the song falters. I could escape now, if I desired escape. Then the High Priestess turns to me, and sings from the depths, merging with the pounding drums and the whirring feet.

These are erotic fantasies of the most powerful kind, stories in which the power of sexual love transforms and renews. Bringing rain to a parched earth, healing an injured soul, birthing a new sun for a dying planet, driving out evil spirits--in the erotic visions of these talented authors, all these things are possible and much more.